The courage of reading – Michael Faber

I enjoy to have books recommended to me by people I do not necessarily know or even fundamentally agree whit. Sometimes what’s recommended is rubbish and sometimes I am pretty amassed to find out what I have been missing in the world of books.

When I was surfing the english book shelves in the main public library in Copenhagen, prompted in my mind by my own overwhelming ignorance of english written literature, reaching the letter F, I stumbled into a book of an to me unknown writer. To my luck the book was a laminated paperback, so I was able to read the recommendations and quotes from Canongate Books advertising effort on the back side. The publisher had among others picked a quote from the english newspaper Guardian which read: “This is man who could give Conrad a run at writing the perfect sentence… Room will now have to be made for Faber alongside Alasdair Gray, James Kelman, Irwine Welsh and A.L. Kenndy.” So this book went to the digital self-checkout-point in the library and followed me home.

I just finished Michel Faber’s “The Courage Consort” and I liked it. A wonderful tour of fucked up postmodern living in the 21. century, written whit great psychological insight in a wonderful shaped natural language with a refined sense of poetry, irony and humor.

Some people think reading books are a waste of time compared to real life! And they are not entirely wrong, but in the same time they are missing out on the subtle qualities of language, the human mind and simply the unknown. Sometimes you should allow yourself to be dazzled by the lengthy words of another spirit. When the conversation takes place inside your own head you somehow listen more carefully..